John Phoebus speaks to Chamber of Commerce members during a 2010 meeting. / Patty Hancock, The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times

by Liz Holland, The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times

by Liz Holland, The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times

CRISFIELD, Md. - John Phoebus wants President Barack Obama to cancel an upcoming vacation and send the $4 million it will cost to Somerset County, Md. for disaster relief.

"It highlights how little it will take to fix Crisfield," he said.

After Phoebus and the rest of Somerset learned this week the county had been denied help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he decided to appeal it straight to the White House - or at least to WhiteHouse.gov.

The organizer of a volunteer hurricane recovery group in Crisfield, Phoebus said he recently met with city officials to estimate the cost of fixing all the houses damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

"It's amazingly close to what taxpayers are spending to send the president to Hawaii," he said.

Phoebus created an online petition on the White House website and by Friday afternoon - less than 48 hours after it was created - it had 1,774 signatures, some of them from as far away as Texas, California and Nevada.

"Somerset County is Maryland's poorest county," the petition reads. "The towns of Crisfield, Fairmount and Deal Island were devastated by the hurricane, with flood waters causing widespread damage. These poor, working, waterfront communities were already fragile from the decline of the seafood industry. Superstorm Sandy left them with no where to turn except FEMA for assistance. For the $4 million it will cost taxpayers for the president to vacation in Hawaii, we could rebuild Somerset County. The president should stay home and send our tax money to Somerset County to rebuild."

But the petition has a long way to go. It needs to have 25,000 signatures by Jan. 4 in order to get an official response - a tall order when the entire population of Somerset County is only 26,470 and many are younger than 13, the minimum age for signing a White House petition.

Phoebus said he doesn't really expect Obama to cancel his vacation, and he knows the petition may fall short on signatures, but he hopes federal officials take notice.

"If someone tightened the belt, they will find money for Crisfield," he said.

The White House website allows citizens to create petitions on issues that are important to them. Other causes with petitions currently online include one to cease paychecks and health benefits to all members of Congress and the president until the fiscal cliff is avoided. It had received 8,721 signatures by Thursday.

In order to create or sign a petition, participants must create a WhiteHouse.gov user account, and are required to use a valid email address when registering.

The petitions on the "We The People" section of the website and can be found at petitions.whitehouse.gov. The specific link for the Crisfield petition is http://wh.gov/NQuu.